Twelve Books for Long Fall Evenings

Fall is the best reading season: dark by six, a blanket on the sofa and nowhere to be. Here are the books we are passing around the office this year. Some are big, absorbing novels you will stay up too late to finish. Some are gentle memoirs that feel like a long walk with a wise friend. And one is a cookbook that reads like a novel, which might be the most comforting book on the list.

Every title below is a recent favorite from the Slow Sunday editors, chosen in a long, cheerful meeting that ran well over time and involved a lot of tea. We have grouped them by mood rather than genre, because in fall we tend to choose books the way we choose sweaters: by how we want to feel.

For getting lost

Big novels with families, houses and secrets — the kind you finish at 1 a.m. These are the books for rainy weekends and long train rides, with enough characters to fill a dinner table and enough twists to keep you turning pages.

1. The Orchard at Hollis Bend by Caroline Ashby. Three generations of a family in western Michigan fight over an apple orchard and the letters hidden in its barn. Rich, warm and very hard to put down.
2. Winter Rooms by James Whitfield. A widowed architect inherits a crumbling lake house in Maine and slowly uncovers the story of the woman who built it. Our deputy editor read it in two sittings.
3. The Last Ferry to Larkspur by Elena Vance. A small island off the coast of Washington, a mysterious newcomer and a summer that changes everyone. Moody, atmospheric and perfect for a stormy night.
4. Everything We Kept by Thomas Reed. Two estranged sisters return to their childhood home in Kentucky to clear it out before it is sold. Funny, sad and full of things left unsaid.

A book in the fall is like a coat. Pick one that keeps you warm.

Walter Pruitt, bookseller

For feeling better

Gentle memoirs about gardens, walking and starting over. These are quieter books, the kind you read a chapter at a time with a cup of tea, and they leave you feeling a little more hopeful about the world.

5. A Year of Small Gardens by Ruth Calloway. A retired schoolteacher in North Carolina plants a garden every month for a year, in pots, borrowed yards and a church parking lot. Full of practical wisdom and quiet joy.
6. The Long Way Home by Daniel Hart. After losing his job at fifty, the author walks a long stretch of the Appalachian Trail and comes back with a new idea of what a good life looks like.
7. Starting Over in Story County by Grace Lindqvist. A newly divorced mother moves her family from Chicago to a tiny town in Iowa and learns to bake bread, keep chickens and ask for help.
8. Letters from the Porch by Henry Oakes. A collection of short essays about neighbors, weather and the pleasures of staying put. Ideal for reading one before bed.

What sets these novels apart is their sense of place. You can smell the apples in the Michigan barn and feel the cold coming off the Maine lake. They are long, but never slow, and each one ends in a way that stays with you for days. If you only have time for one, our editors were split between the orchard and the lake house, which tells you how close the vote was.

Our features editor says this group has a common thread: each author is learning to slow down, and each manages to make that feel brave rather than sad. If your own year has been heavy, start here.

For the kitchen

One cookbook to read like a novel, with stories between the recipes. Our pick this year is Sunday Suppers on Cedar Lane by Margaret and Paul Delaney, a couple who have hosted a weekly dinner for neighbors in their small Wisconsin town for twenty years.

Each chapter follows a season of those dinners, with the stories of who came, what went wrong and what everyone talked about, followed by the recipes for that week’s meal. There are slow-roasted chickens, pots of beans, apple cakes and a chapter devoted entirely to soup. It is the kind of cookbook you read cover to cover in an armchair before you ever cook from it.

Here is the cookbook again for your list, along with three more food books that round out our twelve:

9. Sunday Suppers on Cedar Lane by Margaret and Paul Delaney. Our main pick, described above.
10. The Bread Notebook by Clara Okafor. A baker’s journal of a year spent perfecting a single loaf, with plenty of recipes along the way.
11. Small Batch by Owen Fletcher. Recipes and stories about canning, pickling and preserving the last of the fall harvest.
12. Grandmother’s Table by Lucia Romero. Family recipes from New Mexico, told through the life of the author’s grandmother.

Where to find them

We always recommend buying from your local independent bookstore when you can. Booksellers know their stock, and they are often the best people to suggest what to read next. Walter Pruitt, who runs a small bookstore in a river town in Pennsylvania, has been recommending fall reading to his customers for more than twenty-five years.

“People come in and tell me how they want to feel,” he says. “Cozy, cheered up, a little scared, swept away. Then we find the book. That’s my favorite part of the job.” If a title on our list is not on the shelf, most independent stores are happy to order it for you.

Your public library is another wonderful resource. Many libraries let you place holds online and will text you when a book is ready to pick up. Some also offer e-books and audiobooks, which are perfect for walks and long drives.

Key takeaway: choose books by mood. Fall reading is about comfort, and the right book for the right evening is worth more than the most talked-about title.

Reading habits

A great reading season is not only about which books you pick. It is about making room for them. A few habits our editors swear by:

• Read the first chapter in the store before buying
• Keep a list of books friends recommend
• Try one book outside your usual taste each month
• Set aside twenty minutes before bed with the phone in another room
• Keep a book in your bag for waiting rooms and coffee lines

It also helps to have a reading spot that invites you to sit down. A comfortable chair, a warm lamp behind your shoulder and a small table for a cup of tea will do more for your reading life than any app or challenge. Make the spot inviting and you will find yourself drifting toward it on cold evenings without even deciding to.

Our managing editor adds one more: give yourself permission to stop reading a book you are not enjoying. Life is short, the to-read pile is long, and there is no prize for finishing something you dislike.

Settling in for the season

As the evenings draw in, there is no better way to spend them than with a good book, a blanket and a warm drink. Whether you start with a sprawling family saga, a gentle memoir or a cookbook full of stories, we hope one of these twelve finds its way onto your nightstand.

And if you discover a fall favorite we missed, we would love to hear about it. Our office reading pile is already tall, but there is always room for one more.